I’ve been working with Laszlo in an attempt to port the banquet seating application from a collection of web pages to a Flash application. Things are generally progressing nicely, except for reparenting views when they are moved via drag and drop.
I have two tables, both represented by views. Each table has a collection of views that represent the people seated at that table. I want to be able to drag, say, “John Smith”, from table 411 to table 420, firing an event on the server to perform the logic. However, I have no idea how to go about this and the examples online are too vanilla for my needs.
Has anyone had any luck with this?
nick Uncategorized
We checked out the Body Worlds exhibit at MSI. If you get a chance to see this exhibit, you should check it out. All of the bodies are human corpses preserved using a process called plastination. In addition to the complete bodies, there are various organs on display, as well as vascular structures.
I first read about this exhibit in Mary Roach’s book, Stiff. It’s a very good read about what happens to human cadavers.
nick Uncategorized
Like many of you, there are days when I’ll spend 14 hours or more sitting in front of a laptop or CRT. I already have glasses for myopia, but the prescription is much stronger than I need for terminal work; I really only need to see about 20″ away.
At my last eye appointment, I asked the doctor to give me a weaker prescription specifically for use while staring at a computer. Now that I have “work” glasses, I regret not getting them years ago. My eyes don’t get as tired and I have fewer headaches. I also find myself wearing them when doing things around the house, like cleaning. (The benefit is that stuff looks clean pretty easily now. 
If you’re having problems with your eyes, get them checked out. And ask your optometrist about a pair of work glasses.
nick Uncategorized
Our involvement in the annual conference ended last night with the completion of the banquet seating phase. Because we had to seat 5,000 people, we had about 40 kiosks setup with Seiko label printers to print out each person’s seat assignment. The average time for an attendee to scan their barcode and receive their seat assignment was 7 seconds, but only because the printers were too slow. The actual request to the server, even at peak load, never took longer than a few milliseconds.
(Yes, the staffers actually assign each individual a seat at the banquet, also using our Conference Builder application. The point is to seat large donors with their Members of Congress. Give more money, get a better seat at a more interesting table.)
This article provides a good overview of what goes into the conference. What’s interesting is that the application we provide manages the entire process: from creating eight different versions of the conference program and a personalized program for each attendee, attendee registration and lodging, scheduling speakers, lobbying appointments and transportation, as well as seating for the banquet.
Some people never see how their software is used, or interact with the people that use it. It’s different to see that immediate reaction when things go perfectly. I can honestly say that I’ve never gotten an ovation from a client before.
Now I have time to work on the second edition of Struts In Action.
nick Uncategorized
On one of our projects providing conference management software for a large organization, we decided to go with self-service kiosks using touch screens and barcode scanners. Thankfully, the system has been a huge success.
The attendee starts off the process by scanning a barcode on their confirmation letter, which was mailed off a few weeks ago. (Attendees that didn’t bring their letter may use a manned desk to check-in.)
The kiosks make an HTTP request to a Tomcat server, passing in the barcode digits as a parameter and retrieve the attendee’s badge as a PDF. The PDF is returned to the client kiosk, where the client prints it. Total time from scan to print: 10 seconds. The only problem has been the occasional flaky HP printer. The overall attendee response has been overwhelmingly positive.
As for the kiosk software, it’s written in Swing and run on Windows XP, but it should be able to run just as well on any OS. We used Commons-Httpclient for a simple HTTP client over SSL. The only problem we had was getting the PDF to print, since printers don’t seem to like printing PDF directly. To get around that issue, we used a native executable from the xpdf library to convert the PDF to a Postscipt document, which printers find much more appealing.
If you’re thinking about using kiosks for automation, you should really give it a try.
nick Uncategorized
According the CNBC, Apple is recalling some Powerbook batteries. This is what I found about it on the Apple site.
nick Uncategorized
When I coded with EMACS, I got a lot of mileage out of tempo.el for creating rich templates. I’ve started using the Live Templates in IDEA, but they’re not as rich as what I’m used to with tempo.
I’m interested in what kinds of Live Templates others have created. If you’ve got anything handy or cool, please post it.
nick Uncategorized
A small business always has to expand if it wants to become a large business. I’m fully allocated to application development and sales, and there’s little else I can do to help grow my business.
With that in mind, I’ve hired a sales director to peddle our wares. This represents the first non-technical hire that I’ve made and I’m interested to see how it works out. Alan seems like a good fit and brings with him a great deal of sales experience.
Letting go of this part of my business hasn’t been easy, but it’s essential for growth.
nick Uncategorized